


To Suffer

by Bleck



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eating Disorders, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 13:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14190309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bleck/pseuds/Bleck
Summary: Did you know anorexia is more deadly than suicidal ideation? Tobias does.He's not sure which will kill him first.





	To Suffer

**Author's Note:**

> It's been forever since i've had motivation to write and this is the first thing that I do with it. I'm sorry if it's out of character.

I locked my bedroom door, sighing in relief. I was finally out of school and had a whole two hours to myself before my uncle got back from work. Not that I was happy or anything- I just wasn't miserable. I wasn't looking forward to my uncle getting back or anything, i'd be nuts to, but school hadn't been so bad. Rachel smiled at me...maybe. I think so. Or at least I hope so. I even managed to make it through the day without getting beat up.

Though a normal person might consider being kidney punched and shoved off the bus being beat up. But I was so used to it, and worse than it, that it basically counted as not being beat up at all. It sucked, sure, but it had been worse yesterday. And the day before that. And would probably be worse tomorrow.

Dude poked his head up and meowed from his pillow on my bed, I only ever used one so there was no reason Dude couldn't have his own. And the window was right there so it got a lot of sun which Dude liked. Now I was happy. Who wasn't happy when a cat was happy to see you? Cats are the best, especially loud ones like Dude. Dude was my cat and my best friend, kind of my only friend really, but it was still great to see him. He got up, stretched, and padded over to his food bowl.

"I know, you're hungry. Give me a second." I put my backpack down and got him his food from my closet. I wished he didn't have to wait so long for food but if I left it out then he'd eat all the time or rip the bag open again. Even if he wouldn't, it was always a hassle to get my uncle to buy him food so I had to keep it in the closest just in case. Dude meowed again, he could get kind of whiny. I liked it though. I filled his food bowl up and put the food back as he dug in. His water bowl was also empty, of course, so I poured out the last of the water from his water jug and thankfully it was just enough.

I was glad I got to use that instead of having to go to the kitchen every time I needed to fill his water bowl up. The less my uncle and I saw of each other the better. But just because he was working late today, or stopping at a bar or whatever, all he told me was that he'd be back at five instead of four, didn't mean I was gonna sit in the kitchen until he got back. We didn't get along to say the least. It was a surprise that he even told me he was going to be late.

I grabbed Dude's water jug and sighed again, resigned this time. See, my room is nice and bright because I keep the shades up all the time and manage to keep it kind of tidy. The rest of my uncle's house...isn't like that. I don't think any walls have ever been washed and he smokes. A lot. It's the most common thing kids whisper about me, how much I smell like cigarettes. I hate it.

The living room is always dark. The shades are always down and I'm not sure if the light even works. My uncle spends most of his time on the living room couch so I don't spend much time in the living room. My uncle would also be the reason the couch sags and reeks of budlight and cigarettes.

It's not just how dingy everything is that bugs me, the cigarette smoke that lingers everywhere, or even the smell of beer. The thing that I can't stand the most about the rest of the house is my uncle's cologne. It's the worst. Coming home from school on bad days, as much of a home as it can be anyway, and just smelling everything can make me want to cry. It smells kind of like pine needles and that's bad to, I can't even stand actual pine needles anymore because of it and I used to love the smell.

The kitchen has its own problems. I do the dishes and sweep but I can't do anything about the pile of envelopes, phone book, and all his other junk on the kitchen table. I'm also too short to dust even if I wanted to. The worst problem, by far, in the kitchen was the food.

Which might be an odd thing to say about a kitchen. Since food is the point. But it was bad. Half the food I couldn't even stomach since my uncle only bought food he liked and I was picky. I don't mean to be but I just am. And the half of the food I did like was making me fat.

It was because I was getting fat that I only spent a couple seconds filling up Dude's water before heading back upstairs.

One part of me said it was stupid, the idea that I was fat. I had to agree. I was pretty skinny. But the rest of me said that was either a lie or that I was close to being fat so I couldn't eat. Whatever reason the rest of me came up with, lately I'd been agreeing. Maybe I wasn't fat but shoving my face with junk wouldn't keep me skinny.

It's not like I was really concerned with being skinny or anything, not like some girls in my school. One girl, Jessie, made herself puke. Bulimia it was called. It was a popular rumor for a while, that she made herself puke, but I didn't really care about rumors. I knew most of the ones spread about me were fake so why should I believe that one about her? But two weeks ago in health class we watched a video about bulimia and anorexia and the teacher had to take her to the nurses because she started to cry really hard. It was kind of impossible not to think it was actually true after that.

Thinking about being skinny didn't make me happy or anything either. It was thinking about being fat that brought a lot of emotions. Bad ones. It was almost as bad as smelling my uncle's cologne. It was bad. Disgusting. Revolting. Sometimes looking in my closet mirror made me want to scream or even break it.

"Ugh." I groaned. I didn't like thinking about it really, I had enough issues to deal with. "Maybe music will help."

Another good thing about my uncle not being here, besides just not being here, was that I could listen to music. Well, I could listen to music while he's here but I wasn't stupid enough to risk listening to something like Team Dresch or Pansy Division while he was. They were gay bands and I could imagine his reaction. It wouldn't be pleasant. Team Dresch was a lesbian band and they were really good. I'm not sure why I liked them so much since I'm a boy but they were really good. I found both cds being given away at the library a few months ago and they were still amazing.

I put my earbuds in and skipped to my favorite song on Personal Best, my Team Dresch cd. It was the fifth song in the cd and it was called She's Amazing. I usually liked to mouth the words but I could barely open my mouth today, I just didn't have it in me. Instead, I wrapped my arms around my chest. I could feel my ribs. I hated that I liked that so much.

I was so messed up. I wanted to kill myself.

At this point it was just a fact. I didn't like it but there wasn't a lot I could do about it. There were a lot of other things I didn't like about my life. I didn't know who my mom and dad were or why they left, why I had to live with my aunt and uncle, that I was probably anorexic, that I was a bully magnet all the time. I couldn't change anything about any of it.

I didn't think I would though. There wouldn't be anyone to look after Dude if I did. There was an animal shelter nearby but they killed their animals and if I killed myself then Dude would go there. It was like killing him myself. And I would never do anything to hurt Dude. Never.

There was an animal rehab center near the national forest but I don't think they'd take a cat. I knew the girl whose parents ran it, she was in a couple of my classes. Her name was Cassie, she was nice. But I couldn't go up to her and ask if she'd like to take care of my cat because I wanted to kill myself. We weren't even friends, that would be so weird.

So I couldn't kill myself. I just wanted to. And if I did have anorexia, I didn't have to do it myself. Well, not directly anyway. The video we watched talked about how anorexia nervosa was the deadliest mental illness- almost 20% of people died due to it. Or something like that. It was high. Even higher than just being sucidial. Which is...another thing about my life I don't like I guess. I didn't want to deal with either of them.

I just wanted everything to stop. To just stop.

"Prrrp." Dude chirped, jumping back onto his pillow. He didn't stay there though. Instead he curled up next to me and, after a minute of moving around to get comfortable, settled down. Then he licked my chin.

"Hey, that tickles." I laughed but let him keep going. I couldn't help it, I giggled every time he licked me. "I love you so much, buddy." I kissed his forehead and rubbed behind his ears like he liked. I loved him so much.

Things weren't going to really stop being bad anytime soon. But maybe Dude and I could get an hour of peace. That would have to be enough.


End file.
